


(Like A Record)

by wsswatson



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1980s, HIV/AIDS, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-04 00:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4119441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wsswatson/pseuds/wsswatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short story about love and music in the shadow of the AIDS crisis.</p><p>If you enjoyed this piece, please consider <a href="https://ko-fi.com/A5779ZS">leaving a tip</a> - thank you so much!</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Like A Record)

_When will you accept your-- sick and I am--_

It was never my favourite. It’s Scott who loves it. He always meets me at the end of my shift and sits in my chair and pretends that he is me. There is an hour between the end of my show and the beginning of Jason’s. Jason always arrives quarter of an hour early, so we have forty five minutes to ourselves. I let Scott pick the music. He always plays _Accept Yourself_ first.

When I was nine, mum took the record player from the sitting room and put it in her study where I wasn’t allowed to go. I was obsessed with _Stayin’ Alive_. I played it a hundred times a day, and when I wasn’t playing it I was singing it. She was sick of it within a week, so she put a stop to all of that. She tried to train me out of over-attachment. Nobody ever tried to train Scott out of anything. His enthusiasm is inexhaustible.

Scott has a steady hand. He can always place the needle perfectly in the groove that indicates the end of _Jeane_ and the beginning of _Accept Yourself_. I am never more than a second or two out, but he is never out at all. When I told him that I envied his accuracy, he passed the needle to me and took my hand and taught me how to do as he did. In time, my wrist memorised the guidance of his fingers.

My hand is not as steady as his. Perhaps I had scratched the vinyl, or perhaps he had played the track one too many times and worn it down himself. Perhaps we had knocked the turntable the last time he was here, when he’d made me dance with him despite the unsuitability of the song. My fault, his fault, our fault – it hardly matters. The damage is done now. There’s no point trying to place the blame. The song is jumping and jarring and I’m on air and I’ll be blamed for this no matter whose fault it is and I’m already in trouble. There have been complaints. I’ve been disappointing lately. Not cheerful enough, not funny enough, not talkative enough. It’s a disappointment to me, too. Perhaps this will be the final straw. Perhaps this will lose me my job, and then heaven knows how I’ll pay the rent.

I can fix this. I can turn the microphone back on right now and apologise. I can put something else on. I can just flip the record over. Everyone but Scott prefers _This Charming Man_ anyway.

I haven’t seen Scott for two weeks.

I do nothing.

The song has played smoothly for a few seconds now. Perhaps that was it. Just one fault, and all the rest intact.

_\--and time is against me now-now-now-now-now--_

Perhaps not.

In the booth opposite mine, Mike is drinking tea. He makes atrocious tea. At around midday, most of us are in. The morning DJs stay to chat and the afternoon DJs get in early because the tube isn’t so busy between ten and lunchtime. Everyone always wants tea, except Lisa, who’s a vegan and doesn’t like black tea or soy milk and has to have coffee. Somebody drew up a tea rota so that we didn’t all crowd the kitchen and end up with as many cups as we had friends to make us one. We took Mike off after he served us all watery tepid milk that only George pretended to like.

If Mike was tuned in, he’d make me fix it, but he isn’t. He hates my taste in music.

The song has stopped playing altogether. I nudge the needle, and it lurches back to life.

_\--anythingishardtofindwhenyouwillnotopenyoureyes--_

It resumes too fast, and sounds like a strained gasp for air. It’s alright for a while after that.

When I first came to the station, I ran a requests show. I took over from a man more than twice my age who had left to retire to the continent. I had been in the job no more than a month before I started receiving frequent calls from the same man, always requesting the same song. It became a joke between us. “Hello, Scott,” I’d say, “same as usual?” and he’d say yes, and we’d laugh and I’d play the song (sometimes placing the needle a second out). Then the station had a little party in Soho to mark its fifth anniversary, and Scott came along. George introduced us. It turned out they went to school together. Scott bought me a drink, and we talked all night. He was handsome and charming and smoked too much and had never seen Star Wars and lived in Camden and preferred cycling to public transport and I knew I wanted to see him again.

_\--when – will – you – ac–cept – your – life--_

It’s too late to do anything now. The song has been playing for too long for me to take it off. I’ll pretend I haven’t noticed the stuttering. I wonder how many complaints I’ll receive today and realise I don’t really care as much as I thought I did.

On the calendar on my wall it says October. It’s a month out. Scott will change it for me later, though that isn’t necessary. I know what it says. I know that under November 11th it says ‘Appt. with Dr. Sanders, 4pm’ in Scott’s public school scrawl. I don’t need to see that. I don’t need to go. The NHS are strained as it is, they don’t need me wasting their time. I’m _fine_.

The wall is decorated with posters and album sleeves. Scott and I decorated it together. We started at the top and have been working our way down to the floor. We haven’t got very far – the ceiling is high in here. I had to sit on his shoulders to put the first ones up. It was his idea. He wanted to cover up the marks on the wall where old Blu-tack refused to come off. Favourites of this year’s releases make up most of the lowest row:

 **SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR  
** TEARS FOR FEARS

 **MEAT IS MURDER**  
THE SMITHS

 **YOUTHQUAKE**  
DEAD OR ALIVE

 **BE YOURSELF TONIGHT**  
EURYTHMICS

 **LIKE A VIRGIN**  
MADONNA

 **HOUNDS OF LOVE**  
KATE BUSH

 **BITTER SWEET**  
KING

 **AIDS KILLS**  
GET TESTED

That last one will have to come down. It’s not the right shape. It breaks the pattern. Jason must have put it up. He went to medical school and is obsessed with death. He’s a hypochondriac, and constantly tries to make everyone around him one, too. I’ll remind him to keep to his own wall later.

 _\--_ _tiiime iiis agaaainst meee nooow--_

The worst seems to be over. The music isn’t jarring or jumping anymore, just slowing down. I let it play until the end.

_When will you accept yourself?_

All of my records are in an alphabetised folder. There is a pile of empty sleeves under my desk ready to be added to the wall display. When Scott arrives, I’ll ask him if he thinks there’s any point in putting them up now. If (when) I lose my job I’ll only have to take them all down again anyway.

_When?_

At least we can put them up and take them down together.

_When?_

At least we can stand side by side and accidentally knock elbows and intentionally bump hips.

At least I can listen to his thoughts and feelings on each album as we tack its sleeve to the wall or take it down again.

At least he can tell me obscure trivia about the artists I play which I can write down and later use to impress my listeners.

(Johnny Marr’s real surname is Maher. Kate Bush knows karate. Madonna used to be a drummer.)

_When?_

At least we can be together.

_When?_

I put on Soft Cell once The Smiths have struggled to the last note, then Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Bronski Beat, Wham! I only turn on the microphone to offer a brief apology for the broken record (I’d left the room for a cup of tea and hadn’t noticed the damage until the end, I lie) and to tell my listeners the names of the songs and their artists as if they don’t already know. I don’t have the energy to be entertaining today. I probably will lose my job. It was bound to happen eventually. I never seem to last anywhere for very long.

When my slot finishes and I come off air I get up and tear down the poster, carrying it with me to the kitchen. The bin is overflowing, but I manage to cram it in between a milk carton and an empty tissue box. It must be George’s turn to take the rubbish out. He’s always late. I make two cups of tea and carry them back to the booth. I sit in silence and drink mine slowly and wait for Scott to arrive.

*

I’ve been waiting for forty minutes and Scott isn’t here. I’ll drink his tea. It’s cold now anyway. If he wants some that badly, he can make it himself.

I finish it in five minutes. Then Jason is here and Scott still isn’t.

“Are you alright?” Jason asks. He always sounds so patronising to me. Perhaps that was how they taught him to speak at medical school.

“Yeah,” I say, and after a moment add “Thanks.” Scott despises rudeness and I’ve caught his manners.

“I heard the _Accept Yourself_ incident earlier. You didn’t have to let it play to the end, you know. Actually, you probably really shouldn’t have. What does it say about us if we can’t even play a bloody record without fucking it up?” He doesn’t give me time to answer. “It makes it look like we’re going down the drain.”

“Well, we are, aren’t we? We’re almost bankrupt.”

“That’s not the point. Some things need to be kept covered up. You of all people should know that.”

I nod, not out of agreement but out of having nothing more to say to him.

“No Scott again today?”

“No.”

“Ah, well, try not to worry too much.”

“I’m not worried.”

“No. Good. He’s probably just busy with work. What is it he does? He’s a teacher, isn’t he? That must keep him busy. The run up to Christmas, there’s a lot to get done.”

“Yes. That’s probably it.” I don’t want to talk about Scott to him. I want to go home.

I put on my coat and scarf and pick up the mugs. As I turn to go, I notice Jason looking at the space on the wall where the poster used to be. “That’s my wall,” I say. “Yours is on the opposite side.”

Jason nods, and I carry on. He catches my arm before I reach the door. “You’re sure you’re alright, Will?”

“Yes,” I say, and walk out without looking back.

The closest station is Euston Square, but I already feel suffocated from talking to Jason and I’m not ready to face the underground so I head towards Russell Square instead. Bloomsbury is uncrowded and I can breathe again. I walk along Euston Road until I reach Mabledon Place. A homeless man is sitting on the street corner holding an almost empty polystyrene cup. “Change for tea?” he’s asking, “Any change for a cup of tea?” His voice has the crackling quality of someone whose throat is more used to nicotine than water. I pause to search my pockets and drop 50p into his cup. I wasn’t very charitable until I met Scott. “Thatcher’s letting people die and she’d do the same to us,” he’d say. “We need to stick together.”

I go through Cartwright Gardens where Scott and I played tennis in the summer. Our scores were usually pretty even, but I think he sometimes let me win. He has never been very competitive. I continue onto Marchmont Street, past the bookshop that he loves and that I would love if only I read more often (so he insists). I pause and look in, in case he stopped there on his way to meet me and lost track of time. That’s his greatest fault – he needs constant reminders that time is limited. He’s not there, though. Never mind. I’ll see him soon.

I catch a train at Russell Square and get off at Camden Town. I make my way through the throng and out onto the street ( _sorry, excuse me, thank you, sorry_ ).  I don’t look towards the Lock. Scott lives just on the other side. You can’t see his flat from this side of the bridge, but I can picture it perfectly, though Scott would groan if I said so. He loves psychology and talks a lot about the limitations of the human brain. In the first few months, he would remind me repeatedly that the memory is always fading and use that as an excuse to kiss me. As if he needed one. I won’t give myself time to wonder how much of him I’ve forgotten. The next time I see him, I’ll be the one demanding that he refresh my memory. I consider going to his flat, then change my mind. If he’s at home, he’s busy. He’d have visited otherwise.

You can see Camden Records from the station exit and it only takes me a few seconds of weaving between shoppers to reach it. I’ve known the owner for years. She’ll help me out.

A bell rings above the door when I let myself in. Dead Or Alive is playing inside.

_I’ve got to have my way now, baby_

Debbie is sitting behind the counter with her feet up, smoking and reading NME. She looks up at the sound of the bell.

“Will! Hello, love. Haven’t seen you in a while,” she says.

“Hi, Debbie. It’s good to see you,” I say. “Sorry it’s been so long. I’ve been busy with the station and stuff, you know.”

“And with Scott?” She winks playfully, but I’m not in the mood for playing.

“Ah, no. Not so much with Scott.”

“Oh? Everything alright?”

“Yeah, yes, of course. Fine. He’s just been busy, you know? Nearly the end of the year, he’s got work to mark, work to set… Once the Christmas holidays start he’ll have more time. We’re going away, actually. Up north.”

“That’ll be nice.”

“I think so.”

Debbie seems embarrassed to have mentioned Scott and looks keen to get back to her magazine, so I say “I’ll have a look around.”

“Be my guest,” she says, and I wander to the shelves in the centre of the room.

Depeche Mode’s ‘81 – ‘85 compilation album is on a display case at the top of the shelf labelled ‘D’. Scott loves Depeche Mode. I wonder if he knew about this album. I pick up a copy and tuck it under my arm. The year’s nearly over. I’ll buy it for him for Christmas.

_You spin me right round, baby, right round_

Scott and I used to dance to this all the time. It always seemed to be on in every club we went to at the beginning of the year, which made him happy. He got me into clubbing, brought me out of myself.

_(Like a record, baby)_

A young man and woman come into the shop, holding hands and laughing. They go straight to the ‘P’ shelf, directly opposite to where I’m standing, and she picks up _No Jacket Required_ and takes it to Debbie. Scott hates Phil Collins. If he was here now he’d probably start a debate that only he’d be invested in. I always said he should have been a lawyer or a politician, but he loves teaching. Perhaps he’s too tender for law or politics.

The couple leave arm in arm, her head resting on his shoulder, and I don’t feel like browsing anymore.

I go back to Debbie, pass the Depeche Mode album over the counter and take _This Charming Man_ out of the sleeve while she registers my purchase.

“I was wondering if you could have a look at this,” I say, holding it up. “The B side is damaged, just on the second track, I think.”

“Give it here, love. I’ll take it out the back, get someone to have a look at it.”

I pass the record to her and she turns around and opens a door and goes into another, smaller room where someone else is organising folders. I bob my head in time to the music while I wait for her to come back.

_I get to be your friend now, baby_

“Sorry, love,” she says a minute later as she shoulders the door open, holding the record between pinched fingers. “It’s too scratched up. Nothing we can do, I’m afraid.”

“Ah, well, thanks anyway,” I say, taking it back and replacing it in the sleeve.

“You could send it to a specialist.”

“Oh?”

“I know a bloke who can fix anything, or so he says. People normally send valuable records to him, though – vintage stuff, you know, not, what? ’83? He charges a small fortune.”

I disregard her discouragement. “How long does it take?”

“Depends on how big his backlog is. This time of year, Christmas coming up and people wanting to surprise their grannies with their old favourites, it’s probably pretty big. He might not have a chance to look at it until the New Year.”

“Ah. Maybe not, then.”

“Patience not your virtue?”

“I suppose not.”

“Well, you’d be better off just buying a new copy anyway. It’ll cost you much less than getting that one fixed up. It’s not exactly a rare item.”

“It has, uh, sentimental value.”

“Oh,” she says. “Well, I’ll give that bloke a call, shall I, see if there’s any change he could fit you in a bit sooner?”

“That would be great. Thanks, Debbie.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, though. I’m not sure how successful it’ll be.”

“That’s alright. I really appreciate it.”

“It’s no problem, love. Give Scott my best when you next see him.”

“Will do. Thanks again, Deb.”

I leave with the records under my arm.

The music is fading out as I go.

_I want your love_

_I want your love_

_I need your love_

_I need your love_

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Accept Yourself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9aa0aGBaA0)   
>  [You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGNiXGX2nLU)


End file.
